Finding your home away from home
I love the look of these yurts. They look so warm and comfortable, almost like they been there forever.
Cae Mabon is a retreat in north Wales that lets people come and play, work and live in a communal nature, much more close to the earth than in a typical home. I’d love to try one out!
Read more at Tiny House Blog
Sometimes I need to remember that I don’t need a gigantic space. This weekend cabin in British Columbia started at 10 x 12 feet, plus a sleeping loft. It’s grown a bit since then, but it makes a great use of space and is a perfect example of how sometimes less is more.
Read more at Apartment Therapy
This beautiful Port Townsend home is up in my neck of the woods, and was designed by architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Aside from a wonderful design and great sight lines, I find the mix of materials to be particularly interesting.
The chimney is stone, the pergola/roof is treated lumber (looks like cedar, maybe), and the siding is untreated cedar. The difference in the colors and textures are fascinating. The untreated siding has grayed beautifully, while the roofing lumber is still the “normal” light brown. They look great together.
View more pics at Freshome
The boomerang-shaped Suncrest Home by Heliotrope Architects isn’t normally something I’d give a second look to – it’s big, flat and odd. But it’s on Orcas Island here in Washington, so I thought I’d give it a once-over. And the more I looked, the more I liked!
The long, thin shape of the home gives each different area plenty of privacy. The two bedrooms are on opposite ends of the boomerang, giving the residents plenty of peace and quiet. They are separated by the communal living areas (with an awesome open air dining area), and the thinness of the home makes it so every room has plenty of windows and plenty of views! I like!
Read more at Contemporist
It only takes 44 seconds to build a straw bale geodesic dome house? Awesome! Unfortunately, here in Seattle it would take about 44 seconds for a straw bale home to be reduced to a pile of mud and mulch from all this rain.
Read more at Treehugger
I have no idea where this island is (click for a much bigger look), but it looks amazing. It has a few formal English gardens, two helipads, a few lakes (with fountains, of course), and freakin’ castle. Amazing. Any ideas where it is?
This wonderful article about an English family rebuilding a run down (uninhabitable) French mill into a small stone cabin is really interesting, including all the difficulties they faced – and the clever ways that they overcame the problems. It’s too expensive to do carpentry work on site? Do the work at home in the UK, and transport the pieces through the Chunnel to France and install them complete. No electricity on site for work? Install a couple of solar panels. The roof faces the wrong way for the solar panels? Install the panels on posts in the ground! It’s a good story, and the cabin is beautiful.
Read more at Dwell
Designed as long term emergency housing, the Triple Dome Survival Shelter from the geniuses at Earthbag House Plans supposedly can protect a family from radiation, weather, earthquakes, even bullets. I like the way it looks, it’d be like living in Hobbiton, right?
I like the idea of a cabin that will be safe during a zombie uprising. It sounds crazy (because it is crazy), but I do find myself thinking that sometimes when looking at these places. This home near Warsaw in Poland is taking my foolish paranoia to an extreme.
It’s actually a really nice looking home, and it buttons up tight! It looks like it could survive a nuclear attack!
Read more at Freshome
